Will Oldham Returns to his Unsettling Roots

Will Oldham has quietly been doing something interesting with his Bonnie "Prince" Billy project. Evolving from a solo excursion into collaborations with various musicians, both well-known and borderline completely-unknown, Oldham's found new life, and, it seems, inspiration in one-off collaborations. Last year, he released the pretty traditional The Wonder Show of the World with The Cairo Gang, and then flipped everything on its head, recently releasing a pair of 10-inches (the most beautiful unwieldy format of them all! Get yours right here.), one with frequent collaborator Matt Sweeney and another with relative-unknowns The Phantom Family Halo. "The Mindeater," which is below (and briefly made the internet rounds already, but seems to be somewhat overlooked) sounds like vintage Oldham. Plenty of doom and gloom and foreboding and guitars creaking with rust. While we're not necessarily mad at his more adult-contemporary leaning work on some days, this kind of eerie, unsettling shit is why we got into the dude in the first place. Just for fun, under "The Mindeater," listen to the rough, rough version of "Strange Form of Life," quite possibly our favorite Oldham song ever.